In broad lines, the final nuclear deal, reached between six world powers and Iran in Vienna on Tuesday, July 14 - after repeated hold-ups - grants Tehran sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear program. debkafile: The accord is a triumph for President Barack Obama’s policy of orienting US foreign policy on a rapprochement with Iran, while turning a cold shoulder to America’s traditional Middle East allies, Israel and Saudi Arabia. It anoints Tehran as leading regional power with its nuclear program intact – a major fiasco for Binyamin Netanyahu.

US presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton holds the key to the Democratic Senate vote on the nuclear deal after its announcement in Vienna later Monday, July 13. The Republicans will oppose it, but a majority for annulling the presidential veto depends on 13 Democrats crossing the floor. Iran is ready for this with draft legislation empowering the Majlis to annul the deal if US compliance is deemed unsatisfactory. So the Iranian parliament is pitted against the US Senate and, by implication, Hillary Clinton is in the driving seat versus Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Tehran is divided over whether or not to sign a comprehensive nuclear accord with the six world powers in Vienna as 22 agonizing months of negotiations falter on the brink. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was hardly helpful when he said publicly on Saturday, July 11: “The US is the true embodiment of global arrogance,” the fight against which “could not be interrupted” even after the completion of the nuclear talks. But President Rouhani, on the point of resigning on June 26, failed in an heated interview to talk him round.

Under a secret deal with Obama, Putin has cornered the Middle East nuclear market and signed contracts to supply reactors and other facilities to Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt, Jordan and the UAE. Fordo will become a research center.

European Union Foreign Executive Federica Mogherini is quoted by debkafile’s intelligence sources as shouting at Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohamed Javad Zarif: “If that’s where you stand it’s a pity to waste any more time!” Jarif is quoted as snapping back: “Don’t threaten us!” This exchange took place Wednesday night, July 8, after the second deadline had passed without a final deal. The US delegation led by Secretary of State John Kerry is said to have sat without moving a muscle. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stepped in to cool tempers.

Supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei is keeping all parties, including his own capital, on tenterhooks until the last minute before June 30. Will the nuclear deal get signed? And if it is, how much will it cost?

President Barack Obama is about to make his most substantial concession yet to Iran by agreeing to release only one part of their nuclear accord, while keeping the technical protocols secret. Senior US negotiator Wendy Sherman fought hard to get both parts released, but was overruled. The 50 pages of the nuclear accord’s practical annexes embody the adage that the devil is in the detail. But Obama may choose to keep it secret from Congress, the American public and US allies, while Iran is given free rein to pursue its objectives.

The US president is trying to separate the IRGC from its Al Qods Brigades, offering the first a clear road to eased sanctions, while leaving them in place for the Brigades. This amputation is too artificial to work.

The Obama administration is swinging between conflicting signals on the Iranian nuclear deal. In the face of tough conditions laid down by Tehran, the US president said in Panama Sunday, April 12: “Iran has it own politics and “hardliners” who need to be satisfied, but “there may be ways to structure the final nuclear deal that achieve core objectives while satisfying Iran’s pride.” Just Saturday, US Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said: “We have the capability to shut down, set back and destroy the Iranian nuclear program.” This confusion is useful fodder for Tehran.

Tehran produced a short document Friday, April 3, to dispute the account of the outcome of the Lausanne nuclear negotiations as presented in Washington the day before. The US is accused of "spinning" legallly non-binding "solutions" to cover up gaps on enrichment, sanctions, research and development and verification. All sanctions must be annulled in one day upon Iran’s implementation of the final accord, the Tehran document insists, and new sanctions banned. Inspections are ignored including “the verification mechanisms” promised by President Obama.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif and EU Foreign Policy Executive Federica Mogherini announced Thursday, April 2 that “a general agreement for a peaceful nuclear program and a lifting of sanctions against Iran” had been reached in Lausanne. The agreed parameters of a joint comprehensive plan of action would be negotiated in detail “between now and June 30,” she said. Zarif, who spoke next, insisted: “There is no agreement; and so no commitments” before June 30. But President Obama hailed the agreement as a historic event that “meets our core objectives.”

Up until Thursday, April 2, the American and Iranian negotiators seemed locked in a mighty battle over the pace of sanctions relief, research and development, international inspections and the quantity of low-enriched uranium retained by Iran after shipping its stockpile overseas. But the real gridlock is over procedure: President Barack insists on a signed deal however long it takes, while the Iranian team is bound by the supreme leader’s directive to reject the two-stage process, only the one to be completed by June and include the removal of all sanctions.

President Barack Obama and John Kerry promised that the nuclear deal to be signed with Iran in Switzerland this week would give the world powers a year’s warning from the Islamic Republic’s break out to an operational weapon. debkafile: To clinch the framework deal in Lausanne, even this concession, which imperils Israel, the Gulf and the Middle East at large, was not enough. The president authorized the US delegation to fall back again and cut the space granted the world powers for reaction to breakthrough from a year to six or seven months:

debkafile’s exclusive Iranian sources report that the delegation to the nuclear talks in Lausanne were ordered by Tehran Friday, March 20, to break off the deadlocked negotiations and return home for consultations. Foreign Minister Mohammed Jawad Zarif used the funeral of President Hassan Rouhani's 90-year-old mother as a pretext for packing their bags and quitting. Russia’s Sergei Ryabkov said gaps remain on the length of an agreement, the pace of sanctions relief and international monitoring, with no chance of an accord before June 30.

The US and Iran are in a last-ditch effort to rescue their nuclear diplomacy before it falls into deep crisis. Some observers say the talks are beyond saving. The Obama administration may have hit the limit of its concessions; and Iran won’t give way on centrifuges and enriched uranium stocks. debkafile finds the US, Iran and Israel in a three-way race, each aiming for a different finishing line. Washington wants a nuclear deal in the bag by March 31; Tehran aims for June; while Binyamin Netanyahu nixes the existing US-Iranian draft.

The US delegation to the bilateral talks with Iranian officials taking place in Geneva on June 9-10 has been directed by the White House not to leave empty-handed. Bill Burns and Jake Sullivan, the lead negotiators, were told to give Iran enough incentives to accept an “improved interim accord.” This would help the administration cover up the impasse reached by the P5+1 negotiations, with no chance of a nuclear accord by the July deadline – or even by the extended timeline of Jan. 15, 2015 (as first revealed by debkafile on May 24.)

Iran’s Ali Akbar Salehi’s offer Saturday, April 19, “to redesign” the controversial Arak reactor to produce one-fifth of the plutonium initially planned was a piece of misdirection. debkafile reveals that Tehran has secretly smuggled 1,300 kilos of low-grade uranium to Parchin, the military facility barred to inspectors, and installed there 1,630 banned advanced centrifuges for their rapid upgrade in secret to 20 percent enrichment. The IAEA was deceived into reporting that Iran had left itself with “substantially less of the 20-percent enriched uranium needed for a nuclear warhead.”

Iran and the six world powers Tuesday, April 8, kicked off negotiations in Vienna for a final and comprehensive nuclear accord. debkafile reports that in its haste to start drafting the document by mid-May, the Obama administration is ignoring the military aspects of Iran’s nuclear program. A senior Israeli security official remarked: “The Americans are ready to take Tehran’s assurance that its program is purely peaceful at face value.” The initial US-Iranian argument over the quantity of low-grade enriched uranium permissible is irrelevant given the fissile material concealed in Tehran’s weapons program.